Philip Brasher

Comments are due Nov. 21 on conservation practice standards.

The Agriculture Department released details Tuesday of a long-awaited regulatory process to guide states in the production and transportation of industrial hemp.

The Senate is looking to finish work on a package of spending bills funding USDA and other agencies important to agriculture, but it increasingly appears that Congress won’t reach a final agreement on fiscal 2020 until after the first of the year.

The Trump administration’s trade assistance package and other government payments are keeping the farm economy afloat, while historically low interest rates are helping maintain agricultural land values, according to bankers and economists.

Leaders of the three largest seed and chemical companies say it’s technologically possible to reduce farming’s environmental footprint while feeding a growing global population, but they worry policymakers and regulators will stand in the way. 

What the government gives, the government can take away, as some of the nation's rural electric cooperatives are finding out because of a provision discovered in the 2017 tax law.

A five-year, USDA-funded study says that producers can’t get the insurance coverage they need either because it’s unavailable for their particular crops or won’t cover their losses adequately because of the conservation practices they follow.

Trump administration officials say they are committed to reducing regulatory barriers to agricultural biotechnology as part of a larger strategy to promote the development of a "bioeconomy" based on far-reaching scientific innovations that could revolutionize medicine, nutrition and manufacturing as well as farming.

As much as growers long for an end to the trade war with China, there are long-term threats to demand for corn, soybeans and other crops that could depress commodity prices for years to come and lead to calls for higher government spending, economists say.

USDA’s Risk Management Agency has issued a clarification of an earlier press release to make clear that farmers will receive a 15% top-up payment on prevented planting indemnities this year if their insurance policies had the Harvest Price Option.